Rex Stout - The Mountain Cat

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Here is another topnotch mystery by the author of TOO MANY COOKS and SOME BURIED CAESAR. In this story of Wyoming, silver mining, politics and murder, Rex Stout has brought to vigorous life a group of new characters. Not all of them are nice, but all of them are memorable.
When Delia Brand planned to murder Preacher Rufus Toale, she thought she would be meting out justice for the murder of her father and the suicide of her mother. But when she went to Dan Jackson’s office at ten o’clock that night she only wanted to keep Jackson from firing her sister. She found Jackson dead and she found her gun on the table beside him.
Delia couldn’t murder Rufus Toale because she was arrested for a murder she didn’t commit. That was the beginning of a series of events that had great repercussions. It was almost too late when Wynne Cowles, divorcee, told Delia what Mountain Cat really meant.

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“How did that make it worse?”

“Because... I got a notion that Delia thought Rufus Toale was beginning to do to me what he had done to mother. I told her I was sort of stringing him along, or trying to, but I should have realized, the condition she was in about Rufus Toale, that that wouldn’t reassure her. Mother had evaded our questions about him for two months.”

Dillon gazed at her, frowning deeply, considering.

“But,” he offered finally, “while she may have hated Toale enough to want to kill him, what if she hated Jackson that much too?”

“Why should she?”

“Well, what if... what if she...?” He couldn’t get it out. He demanded savagely, “Did you read the paper? Did you get all the hints? Do you know what the whole damned town is saying? About Jackson and women?”

“What has that got to do with Delia?”

Dillon blurted, “Is she a woman?”

“Oh, you mean... Oh.” Clara compressed her lips, then opened them to say, “You’re a swell lover, you are. You’re a hot one. First you accuse her of murder and now you accuse her of being one of Dan Jackson’s women—”

“I don’t accuse her of anything!” The misery in his eyes was in fact anything but accusatory. “But good God, what am I going to think? What am I going to believe? What do you suppose I came here for? What in the name of heaven was she doing in Jackson’s office at night with a gun in her hand?”

“The gun was there on a chair and she picked it up.”

“What was she doing there?”

“She went to give Jackson a note, signed by Mr. Sammis, instructing him to keep me employed there. Jackson had fired me.”

“Who told you that?”

“She did and Mr. Sammis did.”

“Did you see the note?”

“No, I think the sheriff has it. But anybody who thinks Delia had anything to do with Jackson — that’s utter nonsense. Or me either. I got those dirty hints in the paper, but I thought they were aimed at me. Neither Delia or I would have let Dan Jackson touch us with a ten-foot pole — what’s the idea?”

He had jumped to his feet and pounced at her. “Shake!” He seized her hand and crunched the bones. “Put it there! What the hell! Dear sweet darling beautiful Clara! I’m going to set that—”

“I’m not your darling and you broke my knuckles.”

“Okay. Excuse me.” He grabbed her hand again, planted a kiss on the back of it and sat down on the bench opposite her. “There. Now I can fight with my heart in it. If I can make my brain work. What was it— Oh, yes! You say the gun was there on a chair. How did it get from her handbag onto the chair?”

“Her handbag was there too, lying on the desk.”

“All right, who took the gun out?”

“She doesn’t know. Nobody knows. The handbag with the gun and cartridges in it had been stolen from the car in the afternoon while it was parked on Halley Street.”

“Who says so?”

“She does.”

“How did she get it back?”

“She didn’t get it back. The first she saw it again, when she went to Jackson’s office to give him that note, he was there dead and the handbag was on the desk and the gun was on a chair.”

Dillon stared with bulging eyes. “She didn’t take the handbag to the office at all?”

“Certainly not, how could she? She didn’t have it. It had been stolen.”

“And it was there when she... and the gun... good God.” Dillon’s mouth worked. “Then look here. It’s worse even... so that’s what it’s like! And you’ve turned her over to the mercy of Lem Sammis.”

“You said something like that before,” Clara protested. “He wouldn’t do anything to hurt Delia. I’m sure he wouldn’t.”

“Maybe not. You may be sure, but I’m not. That kind of man feels about people the way a general feels about soldiers. He loves them and he’s proud of them, and he’s especially proud of them when they die for the side he’s leading. That’s natural; it’s part of the make-up of a good general. Jackson was Sammis’s partner and son-in-law. There’s no telling what politics or what kind of plot is behind this. I said we’ve got to do something, and I say it now louder than ever. The chief thing I came here for — I got more than I expected and thank God I did — the chief thing was that I want to be Delia’s counsel.”

“You mean her lawyer?”

“That’s it.”

“But Mr. Sammis has already engaged Harvey Anson.”

“I know he has, but listen. In the first place, no matter what you think, you can’t be sure of Sammis, especially with that planting of her handbag. I tell you she’s in terrible danger. In the second place, that paper I spoke of that she read to me yesterday — my name was on it and it was a long question about the consequences of committing murder. If I’m her counsel I can’t be asked about it and I think I could keep it out of evidence, and if I don’t it would convince any jury that she did actually premeditate murder. Of course you could go on the stand and testify that it was really Rufus Toale she thought she wanted to kill and give the reasons why...”

Clara closed her eyes and shuddered.

“Sure, I know,” Dillon said. “But what else could you do? And the chances are the jury wouldn’t believe you anyway. It’s a pretty queer story if you don’t know Delia and all the circumstances. It would be a big advantage if we could keep that paper and her visit to me out of it. Maybe you think I’m too inexperienced to trust her life to, but the firm would be counsel of record — Escott, Brody and Dillon and old Escott is as good as Harvey Anson any day. You’re her nearest relative and you can designate the firm — shall I answer that?”

It was the phone ringing in the front room. Clara nodded and said, “Yes, please.”

While he was gone she sat twisting her fingers in and out, gazing at the egg on the table. She knew she should have been thinking, preparing an intelligent decision for the problem he had put, but she couldn’t manage her brain. It felt tired and battered. There was that egg. Less than twenty-four hours ago she and Delia had been there eating eggs together, and while they hadn’t been precisely gay, still they had been together and healthy and free...

Dillon returned through the swinging door and she looked up at his face. There was strained urgency in his eyes.

He said, “When I was down at the jail trying to see Delia, the sheriff said he wanted to talk with me and told me to wait there. I was sure he wanted to ask me about that paper and whether Delia had asked me the question on it. I sneaked out and came here. He’s been phoning around and that was him, and he’s sore. I told him I’d be there in five minutes and I’ve got to go. Can I tell him I’m Delia’s counsel?”

Clara untwisted her fingers and clenched them into fists. “Do I have to decide?”

“You’re her sister.”

“Would it mean — would I have to tell Mr. Sammis she is changing lawyers?”

“Yes. Or if you don’t want to offend him, you might persuade him to tell Anson to take me on as associate. Which of course Anson would hate to do.”

Clara sat with her fists clenched, slowly shaking her head, trying to think about it.

Dillon waited. Finally he said, “All right. Come on down with me. If you can’t decide on the way, maybe you can see Delia and put it up to her the way I’ve explained it. You trust me, don’t you, Clara?”

“The way you talk,” she said miserably, “I can’t trust anybody.” She moved. “Come on. I’ll go.”

Chapter 6

At the time that Evelina Sammis was taking off her shoes in the Brand kitchen, her husband was seated at his mahogany desk in his private office on the top floor of the new Sammis Building at 214 Mountain Street, obviously in bad humor, though not displaying the sidewise set of the jaw which foretold the imminent approach of one of his famous fits of temper. Two other men were with him. The one in the armchair, above middle age, who hadn’t shaved that morning, with shrewd cold eyes and a thin-lipped mouth, was Harvey Anson, generally regarded as the ablest lawyer in the state. The other was Frank Phelan, the Cody Chief of Police. He sat with his ankles crossed, displaying bright green socks, looking as hot and harassed as a dog chasing a dragonfly.

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